Tema,– Some mothers of newborn babies at the Tema General Hospital have called for the immediate supply of childhood vaccines to the hospital to help protect their babies.
Babies in Ghana receive some vaccines at mostly monthly intervals to protect them against diseases such as diphtheria, hepatitis B, rubella, tetanus, influenza, measles, tuberculosis, and Poliomyelitis.
The visibly disturbed mothers, who access child welfare services (weighing), told the Ghana News Agency at the Tema General Hospital that they were worried about the non-availability of the vaccines.
But Ms. Linda Adjapong, Tema Metropolitan Disease Control Officer, responding to the alleged shortage, told the Ghana News Agency that “it is an artificial shortage, there is no shortage really on the field, what is happening is that we don’t manufacture vaccines, we procure it from the regional level who also get it from the national level.”
One of the mothers said the child was six weeks old and, therefore, had to receive one injection each on the thighs and two drops of the oral vaccine but they were told the medicine was not available.
“We were six weeks old, when we came, they said some of the vaccines are not available, the nurses told us that the baby was supposed to have one injection each on the thighs, as well as be given an oral one. But only one injection was given they said there is a shortage,” she said.
Another mother stated that “as a mother, it worries me, these same vaccines that protect the children against some diseases so if we don’t get it’s worrying. I am more worried because all my children got the needed vaccine it is only this one that is yet to get.”
A father who accompanied the wife and the baby to the hospital complained that rescheduling the vaccination would have a negative effect on his productivity as he had to ask permission from his superiors at work to be able to attend.
He anticipated that as more babies were being rescheduled until the vaccines were available, it meant that there would be crowding at the center when the supply finally went through, a situation he said could lead to the spread of communicable diseases.
Ms Adjapong explained that with the redistribution, they looked at the facilities that had more than enough and took some of them to supply those who lacked.
She encouraged parents to allow their children to participate in national immunization campaigns for polio and vitamin A as that could give them the needed protection.
Source: Ghana News Agency
